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      Pompeo Says Russia Was Behind Cyberattack on U.S.

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyPompeo Says Russia Was Behind Cyberattack on U.S.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is the first member of the Trump administration to publicly link the Kremlin to the hacking of dozens of government and private systems.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the White House last week. In an interview on the Mark Levin Show, Mr. Pompeo called the attack a “very significant effort.”Credit…Oliver Contreras for The New York TimesDec. 19, 2020Updated 8:12 a.m. ETSecretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday it was clear that Russia was behind the widespread hacking of government systems that officials this week called “a grave risk” to the United States.Mr. Pompeo is the first member of the Trump administration to publicly link the Kremlin to the cyberattack, which used a variety of sophisticated tools to infiltrate dozens of government and private systems, including nuclear laboratories, the Pentagon, and the Treasury and Commerce Departments.“I think it’s the case that now we can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians that engaged in this activity,” Mr. Pompeo said in an interview on “The Mark Levin Show.”“This was a very significant effort,” he said, adding that “we’re still unpacking precisely what it is.”President Trump has yet to address the attack, which has been underway since spring and was detected by the private sector only a few weeks ago. Until Friday, Mr. Pompeo had played down the episode as one of the many daily attacks on the federal government.But intelligence agencies have told Congress that they believe it was carried out by the S.V.R., an elite Russian intelligence agency. As evidence of the attack’s scope piled up this week, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency sent out an urgent warning on Thursday that the hackers had “demonstrated an ability to exploit software supply chains and shown significant knowledge of Windows networks.”The agency added that it was likely that some of the attackers’ tactics, techniques and procedures had “not yet been discovered.” Investigators say it could take months to unravel the extent to which American networks and the technology supply chain have been compromised.Microsoft said it had identified 40 companies, government agencies and think tanks that the hackers had infiltrated. Nearly half are private technology firms, Microsoft said, many of them cybersecurity firms, like FireEye, that are charged with securing vast sections of the public and private sector.“There are more nongovernmental victims than there are governmental victims, with a big focus on I.T. companies, especially in the security industry,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president, said in an interview on Thursday.FireEye was the first to inform the government that the hackers had infected the periodic software updates issued by a company called SolarWinds since at least March. SolarWinds makes critical network monitoring software used by the government, hundreds of Fortune 500 companies and firms that oversee critical infrastructure, including the power grid.The national security adviser, Robert C. O’Brien, cut short a trip to the Middle East and Europe on Tuesday and returned to Washington to run crisis meetings to assess the situation. The F.B.I., the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence formed an urgent response group, the Cyber Unified Coordination Group, to coordinate the government’s responses to what the agencies called a “significant and ongoing cybersecurity campaign.”The Russians have denied any involvement. The Russian ambassador to the United States, Anatoly I. Antonov, said Wednesday that there were “unfounded attempts by the U.S. media to blame Russia” for the recent cyberattacks.According to a person briefed on the attack, the S.V.R. hackers sought to hide their tracks by using American internet addresses that allowed them to conduct attacks from computers in the very city — or appearing so — in which their victims were based. They created special bits of code intended to avoid detection by American warning systems and timed their intrusions not to raise suspicions.The attacks, said the person briefed on the matter, shows that the weak point for the American government computer networks remains administrative systems, particularly ones that have a number of private companies working under contract.President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. said Thursday that his administration would impose “substantial costs” on those responsible.“A good defense isn’t enough; we need to disrupt and deter our adversaries from undertaking significant cyberattacks in the first place,” Mr. Biden said, adding, “I will not stand idly by in the face of cyberassaults on our nation.”Investigators and other officials say they believe the goal of the Russian attack was traditional espionage, the sort the National Security Agency and other agencies regularly conduct on foreign networks. But the extent and depth of the hacking raise concerns that hackers could ultimately use their access to shutter American systems, corrupt or destroy data, or take command of computer systems that run industrial processes. So far, though, there has been no evidence of that happening.Across federal agencies, the private sector and the utility companies that oversee the power grid, forensic investigators were still trying to unravel the extent of the compromise. But security teams say the relief some felt that they did not use the compromised systems turned to panic on Thursday, as they learned other third-party applications may have been compromised.Inside federal agencies and the private sector, investigators say they have been stymied by classifications and a siloed approach to information sharing.“We have forgotten the lessons of 9/11,” Mr. Smith said. “It has not been a great week for information sharing and it turns companies like Microsoft into a sheep dog trying to get these federal agencies to come together into a single place and share what they know.”Reporting was contributed by David E. Sanger, Nicole Perlroth, Eric Schmitt and Julian Barnes.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Got $1 Million to Spare? You Can Buy an Ambassadorship

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyGot $1 Million to Spare? You Can Buy an AmbassadorshipThe donor-diplomat has a long and sordid history in American politics. Joe Biden should finally end it.Mr. Schwartz is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine who reports regularly on national security and foreign policy. He is based in Washington.Dec. 15, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ETGeorge Harvey, the American ambassador to the United Kingdom, at a ball in London with the Prince of Wales on March 23, 1923.Credit…PA Images, via Getty ImagesWho wouldn’t want to be an American ambassador?Beyond the pomp and social cachet, you get a luxury residence, six-figure salary, and private school tuition for your children — a comfortable diplomatic lifestyle bankrolled by taxpayers. For decades, presidents from both parties have quietly distributed a portion of these cushy posts (often in the touristy capitals of Europe and the Caribbean) to some of their most generous campaign donors. Although the practice is technically prohibited by law, Congress has long acquiesced.“We’re the only country in the world that does business in this way,” says Dennis Jett, a retired ambassador, career foreign service officer and professor who wrote the book “American Ambassadors.” “Nobody else has an open market on ambassadorships. If we really believed in capitalism, we would list these postings on eBay.”The problem, as indicated by Gordon Sondland and other donor-ambassadors during the Trump administration, is that the most loyal are often the least competent. But the practice of effectively selling ambassadorships did not start with President Trump. The fact that nearly every modern president has done the same would seem to be the rare piece of evidence in support of Mr. Trump’s claim that he is no more corrupt than the Washington “swamp.” The incoming Biden administration now has a chance to prove him wrong.The precise origins of ambassadorial graft are obscure, but one of the earliest examples can be found inside the original “smoke-filled room,” a suite at the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago, where Republican power brokers haggled into the early hours of June 12, 1920, trying to choose an agreeable presidential candidate to unite their party’s deadlocked convention. They finally settled on the stately-looking junior senator from Ohio, Warren G. Harding. One of Harding’s powerful backers was George Harvey, publisher and industrialist, who had engineered Woodrow Wilson’s ascent to the White House. After Harding won the election, he made Harvey ambassador to the Court of St. James’s in London.Ambassador Harvey wasted no time in making a fool of himself. He showed up dressed like a minister from the previous century, in satin knee breeches and silver-buckled slippers. He gave a speech at a London club questioning whether women had souls. In another speech, delivered before the Pilgrims Society, he claimed that the United States had fought in World War I “reluctantly and laggardly” to save its own skin. Almost immediately, Harvey was condemned on both sides of the Atlantic. Harding distanced himself from his ambassador’s views.George Brinton McClellan Harvey, seen here in 1914, was the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom during the Harding administration.Credit…Harris & Ewing Collection, via Library of CongressIn 1924, Congress passed the Rogers Act, an attempt to create a corps of professional career diplomats. But the temptation to reward political allies with ambassadorships has only grown.Mr. Sondland, a hotelier who gave a million dollars to Mr. Trump’s inaugural committee, was made the United States ambassador to the European Union. Unlike Harvey, who had real clout, Mr. Sondland was mainly distinguished by his willingness to give away his own money. (Among his “honors,” according to his official curriculum vitae, was the purchase of a California Hyatt, crowned “transaction of the year” at the American Lodging Investment Summit.)As ambassador, Mr. Sondland undermined his State Department colleagues by serving as a backchannel during Mr. Trump’s attempted shakedown of the Ukrainian government. He was also overheard conducting a sensitive conversation with the president on his personal cellphone in a Kyiv restaurant, a security breach that a former C.I.A. official called “insane.”Under Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, roughly 70 percent of ambassadorial posts went to Foreign Service Officers — professionals who spent years training for such a post. The other 30 percent have been political appointments. Some of those are competent foreign-policy veterans; others have country expertise from working in business or the nonprofit sector; still others are chiefly qualified by their willingness to pour money into their patron’s political campaign. Under Mr. Trump, the number of political appointments rose to 43 percent.The history of American diplomacy is replete with presidential cronies who get their coveted ambassadorships only to find themselves in over their heads. Franklin Roosevelt sent the Democratic backer Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. as his envoy to the United Kingdom. Like Harvey, Kennedy proved to be a headstrong magnate who couldn’t control his isolationist streak. He predicted that “democracy is finished in England,” after the Battle of Britain and resigned soon after.Over the following decades, as the costs of campaigning rose, money took the place of back-room influence as the key criterion for would-be ambassadors. Richard Nixon’s lawyer put an explicit price tag on an ambassadorship — $250,000 for Costa Rica — then denied having done so to a grand jury. One of his appointed donors, Vincent de Roulet, called his Jamaican hosts “idiots” and “children.” De Roulet’s attempts to protect American bauxite interests by threatening to interfere in Jamaican elections were not well-received by the host government. In 1973, Jamaica declared him persona non grata; he resigned in disgrace.President Jimmy Carter attempted to reform the system, promising a merit-based process overseen by a bipartisan screening board, and Congress made another attempt to limit political appointments with the Foreign Service Act of 1980. But the pay-for-play system continued, spurred on by campaign costs and the aspirations of the wealthy.William A. Wilson, a longtime friend and backer of Ronald Reagan’s, was made the first United States ambassador to the Vatican, a post he held until 1986, when reports surfaced of his unauthorized meeting with the Libyan dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi, which flouted White House policy.George Tsunis, another wealthy hotelier, raised $1.3 million for Mr. Obama and was his choice to be ambassador to Norway. Mr. Tsunis proved so ignorant of the country in his confirmation hearing that the Senate sat on his nomination for more than a year. Mr. Tsunis eventually gave up. Three other Obama backers who made it through the confirmation process for other assignments resigned in the midst of scathing reports on their management from the State Department’s inspector general.Under Mr. Trump, the inspector general has reportedly examined allegations of racist and sexist remarks by Woody Johnson, a seven-figure donor who became ambassador to the United Kingdom. Jeffrey Ross Guntner, Mr. Trump’s donor-ambassador to Iceland, reportedly wanted to manage the embassy remotely, from California, through the coronavirus pandemic. Kelly Craft, currently ambassador to the United Nations, spent more than 300 days traveling outside the country during her brief tour as donor-ambassador to Canada.President-elect Joe Biden, who had a clear view of this system as the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for many years, now has a chance to reform it. It is unclear whether he will.While his primary opponent Sen. Elizabeth Warren vowed that no ambassadorial posts would go to donors or bundlers, Mr. Biden demurred when asked about the issue earlier this month, saying only that he would “appoint the best people possible.” Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, has sponsored a bill that would require would-be ambassadors to disclose their country knowledge and language skills in detail, along with any political contributions given or bundled over the previous 10 years.Ambassadors are responsible for hundreds of government employees and have a hand in most every aspect of American policy within the borders of their host nation. “Would you want a campaign contributor to be the captain of an aircraft carrier?” asked Mr. Jett, the retired foreign service officer and author. “Obviously not. This is a national security issue.”Beyond the inherent risk of giving such a sensitive job to anyone but the most competent candidate, the practice of nominating donors demoralizes the foreign service, wastes opportunities to develop future leaders, and presents the world with a cynical face. It is an especially dangerous practice when Mr. Trump has been working to reframe foreign policy as a more contingent set of arrangements where there are no permanent bonds, only interests.Perhaps there was once a time when American alliances were strong enough to withstand a few Sondlands, but that is far less true today than it was four years ago. If Mr. Biden is serious about restoring America’s standing in the world, he should entrust that task to professionals.Mattathias Schwartz (@schwartzesque) is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine. He is also a contributing editor for Rest of World and a former staff writer at The New Yorker, where he won the Livingston Award for international reporting.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Send In the Peace Brokers

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storySend In the Peace BrokersAn absurd political moment calls for an absurd political solution.By More

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      Joe Biden: ‘Vamos a pelear con todo al invertir en Estados Unidos primero’

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Presidential TransitionliveLatest UpdatesFormal Transition BeginsBiden’s CabinetSecretary of StateElection ResultsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpiniónSupported byContinue reading the main storyComentarioJoe Biden: ‘Vamos a pelear con todo al invertir en Estados Unidos primero’Esto es lo que el presidente electo de Estados Unidos dijo sobre el futuro del país en nuestra entrevista.Credit…Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesPor More

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      Dear Joe, It’s Not About Iran’s Nukes Anymore

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      With the assassination by Israel of Iran’s top nuclear warhead designer, the Middle East is promising to complicate Joe Biden’s job from day one. President-elect Biden knows the region well, but if I had one piece of advice for him, it would be this: This is not the Middle East you left four years ago.The best way for Biden to appreciate the new Middle East is to study what happened in the early hours of Sept. 14, 2019 — when the Iranian Air Force launched 20 drones and precision-guided cruise missiles at Abqaiq, one of Saudi Arabia’s most important oil fields and processing centers, causing huge damage. It was a seminal event.The Iranian drones and cruise missiles flew so low and with such stealth that neither their takeoff nor their impending attack was detected in time by Saudi or U.S. radar. Israeli military analysts, who were stunned by the capabilities the Iranians displayed, argued that this surprise attack was the Middle East’s “Pearl Harbor.”They were right. The Middle East was reshaped by this Iranian precision missile strike, by President Trump’s response and by the response of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to Trump’s response.A lot of people missed it, so let’s go to the videotape.First, how did President Trump react? He did nothing. He did not launch a retaliatory strike on behalf of Saudi Arabia — even though Iran, unprovoked, had attacked the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure.A few weeks later Trump did send 3,000 U.S. troops and some antimissile batteries to Saudi Arabia to bolster its defense — but with this message on Oct. 11, 2019: “We are sending troops and other things to the Middle East to help Saudi Arabia. But — are you ready? Saudi Arabia, at my request, has agreed to pay us for everything we’re doing. That’s a first.”It sure was a first. I’m not here to criticize Trump, though. He was reflecting a deep change in the American public. His message: Dear Saudis, America is now the world’s biggest oil producer; we’re getting out of the Middle East; happy to sell you as many weapons as you can pay cash for, but don’t count on us to fight your battles. You want U.S. troops? Show me the money.That clear shift in American posture gave birth to the first new element that Biden will confront in this new Middle East — the peace agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, and between Israel and Bahrain — and a whole new level of secret security cooperation between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which will likely flower into more formal relations soon. (Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel reportedly visited Saudi Arabia last week.)In effect, Trump forced Israel and the key Sunni Arab states to become less reliant on the United States and to think about how they must cooperate among themselves over new threats — like Iran — rather than fighting over old causes — like Palestine. This may enable America to secure its interests in the region with much less blood and treasure of its own. It could be Trump’s most significant foreign policy achievement.But a key result is that as Biden considers reopening negotiations to revive the Iran nuclear deal — which Trump abandoned in 2018 — he can expect to find Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates operating as a loose anti-Iran coalition. This will almost certainly complicate things for Biden, owing to the second huge fallout from the Iranian attack on Abqaiq: The impact it had on Israel.After Trump scrapped the nuclear deal, Iran abandoned its commitments to restrict its enrichment of uranium that could be used for a nuclear bomb. But since Biden’s election, Iran has said it would “automatically” return to its nuclear commitments if Biden lifts the crippling sanctions imposed by Trump. Only after those sanctions are lifted, said Tehran, might it discuss regional issues, like curbs on Iran’s precision missile exports and capabilities.This is where the problems will start for Biden. Yes, Israel and the Sunni Arab states want to make sure that Iran can never develop a nuclear weapon. But some Israeli military experts will tell you today that the prospect of Iran having a nuke is not what keeps them up at night — because they don’t see Tehran using it. That would be suicide and Iran’s clerical leaders are not suicidal.They are, though, homicidal.And Iran’s new preferred weapons for homicide are the precision-guided missiles, that it used on Saudi Arabia and that it keeps trying to export to its proxies in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq, which pose an immediate homicidal threat to Israel, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Iraq and U.S. forces in the region. (Iran has a network of factories manufacturing its own precision-guided missiles.)If Biden tries to just resume the Iran nuclear deal as it was — and gives up the leverage of extreme economic sanctions on Iran, before reaching some understanding on its export of precision-guided missiles — I suspect that he’ll meet a lot of resistance from Israel, the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia.Why? It’s all in the word “precision.” In the 2006 war in Lebanon, Iran’s proxy militia, Hezbollah, had to fire some 20 dumb, unguided, surface-to-surface rockets of limited range in the hope of damaging a single Israeli target. With precision-guided missiles manufactured in Iran, Hezbollah — in theory — just needs to fire one rocket each at 20 different targets in Israel with a high probability of damaging each one. We’re talking about Israel’s nuclear plant, airport, ports, power plants, high-tech factories and military bases.That is why Israel has been fighting a shadow war with Iran for the past five years to prevent Tehran from reaching its goal of virtually encircling Israel with proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Gaza, all armed with precision-guided missiles. The Saudis have been trying to do the same versus Iran’s proxies in Yemen, who have fired on its airports. These missiles are so much more lethal.“Think of the difference in versatility between dumb phones and smartphones,’’ observed Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment. “For the past two decades we have been consumed by preventing Iran’s big weapon, but it is the thousands of small smart weapons Iran has been proliferating that have become the real and immediate threat to its neighbors.’’That is why Israel and its Gulf Arab allies are not going to want to see the United States give up its leverage on Iran to curb its nuclear program before it also uses that leverage — all those oil sanctions — to secure some commitment to end Iran’s export of these missiles.And that is going to be very, very difficult to negotiate.So, if you were planning a party to celebrate the restoration of the Iran-U. S. nuclear deal soon after Biden’s inauguration, keep the champagne in the fridge. It’s complicated.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      ‘Democracy Should Not Be Taken for Granted’

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      “Mr. Biden has vowed to turn the page on the ‘aberration’ of Mr. Trump’s foreign policy,” wrote Robert Malley and Philip H. Gordon in the Op-Ed “Trump Still Has 70 Days to Wreak Havoc Around the World.” But is that what people around the world really want?We asked readers living outside of the United States to give us their perspectives on the election and the way that President Trump and President-elect Biden have handled the transition. Some were disappointed in the results.“Trump is not popular in Korea, but his actions to break through the long-frozen U.S. and North Korean relationship were very promising,” wrote Youngsook Soahn in Seoul, South Korea. “I doubt a President Biden and the Democrats will do any good for the Korean Peninsula.”For others, the race itself was a cautionary tale:“To see the U.S. move away from a slide into autocratic leadership was gratifying, but everything that has happened since has only reinforced the idea that this may be a brief sojourn from the madness,” wrote Jack McColl in Melbourne, Australia. “It seems the time we could rely on the U.S. to play a consistent leading role in global society has come to an end.”More reactions from international readers follow. They have been edited for clarity and length.South America‘Biden understands the necessity of ending the Maduro regime’Fernando Coca Ruiz, Tarija, Bolivia: America has shown the world that democracy should not be taken for granted, that it requires our willingness to participate constantly in order to make sure it actually represents “The People.” As for my own country, I’m sure Joe Biden understands the necessity of ending the Maduro regime. It would be a major win for him and for the Venezuelan people. But I’m concerned that hard-line progressives like Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will influence the administration to support socialist presidents like Alberto Fernández in Argentina and Luis Arce in Bolivia. If this were to happen, Latinos and the new administration will move further apart. Just look at the election results in Miami.‘Biden will have a very hard time reversing the damage’Saul Zambrano, Mexico City: The U.S. presidential election has made the limits and shortcomings of its electoral system more evident than ever. Biden will have a very hard time reversing the damage that has been done in a short Trump administration. And I’m appalled and ashamed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s refusal to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden. Looking at the club of countries that haven’t congratulated him, it’s clear we shouldn’t be a part of it.‘It will be business as usual’Uziel Nogueira, Florianópolis, Brazil: Even Pinochet accepted the results that ended his dictatorship of 25 years. As far as the impact to Brazil, it will be business as usual. The good news is Bolsonaro’s foreign policy will now be guided by national interest and not to please Donald Trump.North America‘America had chosen a racist’Liza, Bequia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines: I’m on the formation committee of Democrats Abroad, Caribbean Islands Group. We’re thrilled that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were elected and our overall sense is that throughout the plethora of Caribbean island nations, most people are relieved by this win. They recognize that Trump threatened to destroy democracy itself. And in a region where the Indigenous are primarily Black, they were saddened and appalled that America had chosen a racist to lead it. Black Lives Matter gave them hope, and so do Biden and Harris.Harris’s Jamaican heritage, and her many accomplishments, fuel a particularly deep-welled source of pride throughout the region. She coolly exhales benevolent messaging over the seemingly endless conflagrations of our outgoing leadership. Likewise, the Biden/Harris “unity first” and “facts matter” prescriptive is resoundingly joyful and heartening.‘The rot in your democracy will continue to spread’Glen Rowe, Nanaimo, British Columbia: As a neighbor and a friend, I am deeply concerned for the well-being of your country. While I am profoundly relieved that Biden and Harris have won your election, I worry that they will be rendered largely ineffective by Mitch McConnell and his obstructive, anti-democratic crew of Republican senators and the rot in your democracy will continue to spread. My country’s well-being is tied to yours.The Middle East‘Trump has been unintentionally beneficial to Middle Eastern peace’Terry Plasse, Sde Yaakov, Israel: I’m a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen and have lived in northern Israel the past six years. Most of the American expats I know in Israel share my negative view of Donald Trump. Israelis without ties to the U.S. are mostly concerned with how he has affected Israel and most favored moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. I think Trump has been unintentionally beneficial to Middle Eastern peace. Not because he did any negotiating, but because several Arab countries in the region have decided that they share more interests with Israel than the U.S. And those shared interests or alliances with Israel may be more valuable than those with the U.S. (an example of transactional diplomacy, which is not a bad thing).‘Biden needs to show no leniency’Mohammad Reza Mohammad Karimi, Karaj, Iran: President-elect Biden is expected to correct the global perception that Americans condone lies, violate international commitments, commit fraud, abuse offices and support dictators — as long as they remain economically strong. To do this, Biden needs to show no leniency to Donald Trump and let the law take its natural course. If a court were to sentence Trump to prison, Biden should not try to protect him. This alone will ensure that Trump’s type of misrule is never, ever repeated and the havoc unleashed on the world will become a lesson for all future generations.AsiaHope for ‘an ambitious climate policy’Pratik Londhe, Pune, India: The new administration gives me hope, especially for an ambitious climate policy. The U.S. can take the lead and set the example for the rest of the world with something like the Green New Deal. This could set off a chain of events across the globe in favor of renewable energy and sustainable development. The politics in my country repeatedly sidestep this issue.‘We do not need a hot war nearby’C.K. Ung, George Town, Penang, Malaysia: The chaos in the U.S. before and after Election Day was a big concern for countries in Southeast Asia. In the months before the election, the U.S. had escalated its military movements in the South China Sea and around Taiwan, maybe to show voters that Trump’s administration is tough on China. With Trump and his supporters taking actions on multiple fronts to retain his presidency, there is a risk that he may actually provoke a shooting war in the South China Sea, which would cause economic hardship to countries in Southeast Asia. Times are bad and people are suffering under the Covid-19 pandemic. We do not need a hot war nearby to add to our suffering.They are ‘amused by his Twitter feed’Jeff Axelrod, Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu, China: Some of my students at the Chinese high school where I teach say they’re a little sad Trump will be leaving. They’ve been entertained and amused by his Twitter feed. But as an American expat, I’ve had several local adults ask for my opinion — they don’t want to offend by stating theirs first — and they’ve been greatly relieved when I’ve told them I’m not a fan. They see him as immature, petty and dangerous.AustraliaAmerica has ‘missed the boat, badly’Leslie Michael Anderson, Orange, New South Wales: I don’t really believe that Biden is strong or smart enough or has the ability to do much good for the American people. After more than four decades in politics his contributions have basically been to agree with whatever was happening, including the invasion of Iraq. I don’t like Trump but I don’t believe that Biden can be trusted to do more than make promises. If America is looking for a leader with the ability to make a real difference they have missed the boat, badly.Africa‘We should not be so reliant on the U.S.’Faadiel Essop, Paarl, South Africa: I’m glad Trump’s presidency is (hopefully!) coming to an end so President-elect Biden can begin to restore U.S. relations with Africa. Maybe he could increase support to help counter major burdens of diseases such as H.I.V.-AIDS and Covid-19. However, the Trump years made us realize that we should not be so reliant on the U.S. and to gaze elsewhere for supporters and allies. On a personal level, I used to attend at least one major science congress in the U.S. until Trump took over, and I imposed a “travel ban” on myself. I’m not sure if I will return now that I am collaborating with scientists in other countries that are far more welcoming and helpful.Europe‘The E.U. has become less dependent on its “big brother”’Charlotte Raab, Leuven, Belgium: I cannot recall ever following an election that closely and anxiously before, not even ones in which I’m allowed to vote. I’m confident this new administration will re-establish the bonds that exist between the United States and the European Union, but the past years have also shown that the E.U. has become less dependent on its “big brother” and can stand up for itself. Biden and Harris will have a lot of work to do rebuilding trust in institutions.‘Biden will bring more interventionist foreign policy’Joshua Rice, Adana, Turkey: I’m an American expat living in Turkey. People here think Biden will bring more interventionist foreign policy in the Middle East. Turks are anti-Kurdish thanks to P.K.K. terrorist attacks and they like that Trump moved our troops away from the border to allow Erdogan to establish a security buffer.‘Johnson eagerly imitated Trump’s insults to the international order’Abigail Maxwell, Northamptonshire, England: As do many Britons, I hope Trump’s defeat will make Mr. Johnson, our prime minister, think again about his threat to break the Good Friday Agreement, by which there is no hard border in Ireland. I hope Mr. Johnson will use his last few days to make a trade agreement with the E.U., on which the British economy depends. While Johnson eagerly imitated Trump’s insults to the international order, I hope he will see that there is more cost to that position now that Trump is gone.‘A giant needs to take care where and on what he steps’Larus Jon Gudmundsson, Iceland: It’s the old story of the fluttering of a butterfly wing in one corner of the world resulting in a hurricane in another. But in this case it’s the kicking of an elephant in an Oval Office whose multiple effects can and will be felt in every corner of the earth. A giant needs to take care where and on what he steps. Being a member of a small nation, I’m very much aware of the effects of your president’s actions. Leaving international treaties and institutions should not be left to the whim of one person.‘Others will take up the baton elsewhere’Diego, Crespos, Spain: I’m certainly glad that Mr. Trump lost the election, but I’m still shocked by the fact that almost half of Americans voted for him. Trump has shown authoritarian leaders all over the world that you can lie shamelessly and despise international organizations and get away with it. We’ll be suffering his legacy for years to come as others will take up the baton elsewhere. That is something that Mr. Biden can’t undo.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More